The invention relates generally to devices for cleaning teeth and relates more particularly to multi-brush devices for cleaning dentures.
Dentures are typically three dimensional molds that include a denture base and teeth. The intaglio of the denture base of an upper denture includes the outer palate area which has small rugae (ridges and grooves) that coincide with the palette ridges and grooves of the roof of the mouth. The gums of the upper denture are formed by an upwardly extending flange that has high or low palate grooves. Generally, the intaglio of the denture base of the lower denture includes a "U" shaped gum channel formed by an inner lingual flange and an outer facial flange. Given the complex shapes and contours of these various parts of the denture, conventional tooth brushes are not generally suited to adequately clean dentures since these brushes are often too soft or too wide so that hardened matter is difficult to remove. The wide brushes do not adequately fit into small palette grooves or the rugae in the "U" shaped gum channel. Therefore, denture cleaning brushes have been designed in an effort to overcome these problems.
One such denture cleaning brush shown in FIG. 1 has a curved handle 12 with a curved brush 14 and an opposing circular tapered brush 16 both at a same end thereof. The curved brush 14 has tapered outer bristles 18 and generally flat inner bristles 20. The curved brush 14 is curved to match the curved shape of the denture. The circular tapered brush 16 includes stiff filaments to penetrate between teeth. Although such a multi-brush denture cleaning device may be an improvement for cleaning dentures compared to conventional single brush tooth brushes, such a brush 10 is not generally adapted to suitably fit in gum crevices and gum channels since the diameter of the circular brush may be too large. Also, the bristles project in the same direction as the teeth but palette grooves in the gum channels may extend longitudinally in the gum channel. Therefore, the palette grooves are generally not cleaned by the downward extending bristle tips of conventional brushes. In addition, such a brush 10 requires a user to flip the brush over 180 degrees to use the opposing brush. Continuous opposing rotation during cleaning can become cumbersome.